


Hulk Takes Out the Trash

by jdphoenix



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: Crack, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-11
Updated: 2012-06-11
Packaged: 2017-11-07 11:42:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/430760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Or he thinks he is, at least.) </p>
<p>Bruce discovers an attractive, younger woman in Stark Tower and jumps to conclusions. Hulk takes matters into his own hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hulk Takes Out the Trash

**Author's Note:**

  * For [writerblocked](https://archiveofourown.org/users/writerblocked/gifts).



> Writerblocked was lamenting the lack of new/updated Darcy/Bruce fics (and by that she meant "in the last hour") so I figured I'd help her out and alleviate some of my Sunday afternoon boredom in the process.
> 
> Spoilers for Avengers.

Intellectually Bruce understands why people hate Tony. He's rude and brash and his ego is at least twice the size of the tower he slapped his name on. Emotionally though, Bruce is incapable of hating Tony. It's … weird. He actually tried once. He dredged up every memory of every horrible thing Tony had ever done to him and, from the dark, green corner of his mind, came what could only be laughter.

Turns out the Other Guy likes Tony, which renders Bruce emotionally incapable of hating him. He should probably study this phenomenon but putting the hypothesis to paper would mean Tony would find it. Discovering he's one of the only people on the planet the Other Guy likes would inflate Tony's ego even further and it would finally do what it had been threatening to for years: throw off the Earth's rotation and plunge the world into a new ice age.

Bruce has done enough damage in his life, he doesn't need to be responsible for that kind of catastrophe.

So he does what he imagines normal, non-scientist people do and accepts this new facet of his reality without poking it with a stick. (Well, except for that one time he actually poked Tony with a stick, but that was only because Tony did it first and Pepper totally took his side so Bruce wins.) It works out well enough. Tony gets to strut around the tower, annoying all the other Avengers, the Other Guy gets to laugh at their pain, and Bruce gets to have a friend he doesn't worry about killing (most of the time. No matter who he might like, the Other Guy is still a behemoth who can crush skulls like grapes).

All in all, he's happy with his decision not to study his own psyche - until the day he sees a half-dressed woman in the kitchen.

She's young, probably fresh out of college. If her tousled hair and lack of pants are any indication she probably spent the night in the tower. As she reaches up for the Cocoa Puffs the oversized sweater she wears pulls up and he can see her pink underwear.

Bruce will later admit that he's a little turned on by this. It's his only excuse for what happens next. While he was initially taking in her appearance he was running through the possibilities for just why she was here.

Thor is in a committed relationship and spends his nights at her place.

Steve can barely talk to women, let alone get one into bed.

Clint, Bruce is fairly certain, is in a pseudo-relationship with Natasha and even if they were going to invite a third he imagines it'd be someone a bit more dangerous and a bit less adorable.

Coulson still can't walk more than a flight of stairs without getting winded and since Bruce is one of his doctors, he's sure the man's not cleared for sex yet.

That just leaves Tony.

Tony, who is a recovering ladies' man.

Tony, who is in a relationship with a woman he loves.

Tony, who the Other Guy likes.

Everything goes very green, very quickly after that.

\---------------

Darcy's not quite sure what happened but she is sure she's gonna stop with the late night Lifetime movie marathons. If it wasn't for them and their stupid, crappy drama she'd be fully awake right now and she might actually understand why one minute she was pouring herself a bowl of Cocoa Puffs and the next she's looking at New York City flying by beneath her feet.

"Holy shit!" she yells and grabs onto whatever is keeping her from hitting the pavement. Whatever it is, it's holding her tight, like a hug from Thor but only around her waist. She twists, more to get a better grip on it than to actually see what it is, and discovers she is in some serious trouble. Her Welcome to Stark Tower pamphlet had a lot of helpful tips but at the very top, in big, bold letters, was the instruction to _keep the hell away from the Hulk_ and here Darcy is, going for a ride with the guy. And she thought Jane was the bad luck magnet.

It doesn't take many more jumps - and Darcy realizes they've been _jumping_ , not flying, but with the leaps this guy takes it's not much of a distinction - before Hulk finally lands at the edge of a park. He lets Darcy go and if she didn't want to get the hell away from this guy she'd drop to her knees and kiss the ground. She settles for backing away until her back hits a lamppost, which she holds onto for dear life.

"Okay. Okay," she says, doing deep-breathing exercises that Jane taught her in an attempt to shut her up for a few minutes. (Yeah, like that's ever gonna happen.)

It's lucky that it's so early on a weekend. There's almost no one around. All the pedestrians were able to scamper away with little fuss and it looks like police are already redirecting traffic. After Darcy takes all this in there's really nowhere to look except at the Hulk. He seems to have been waiting for this. His face screws up into a sneer and he huffs at her like _that shows her_. Normally Darcy would respond with a snappy comeback or yelling or her trusty taser but this is _the Hulk_ and her taser's in her purse back at Stark Tower so instead she just nods and tries to look like she's learned her lesson.

When she took up the offer to move into Stark Tower to escape the epic love story that is Jane and Thor (she's happy for them, she really is, but could they be more nauseating?) she did not think she would end up kidnapped by the Hulk on her first morning there.

She decides to shrug this off as just the sort of thing that happens when you live with superheroes and takes a step in the direction of the tower she can still see a few blocks away (damn that penis metaphor is overcompensating).

She makes it two steps before her vision is filled with green.

"Oh! Sorry," she says. She backs up a step or two and tries to go around him. Same result. She drops her head back so she can look up into his angry face.

"Uh, hi?" she says in that way that gets guys to let her cut in front of them in the line at Starbucks.

Hulk is unmoved.

"Listen," she tries, "that was a great wake-up and all but I'm not exactly dressed for sightseeing." She pulls her sweater as far down as it will go for emphasis. "So I'm just gonna go back to the tower and-"

The Hulk _growls_. Darcy's had things growl at her before - dogs, her second grade class gerbil - but having a giant person who can kill you with their giant pinky finger growl at you is something totally different. She backs up several steps this time, not stopping until there are at least two Hulk-widths between them.

"Uh, miss?" One of the cops has dared to come nearer. Not near enough to get between her and the Hulk, but near enough to call out to her without having to yell. Darcy hopes he's not two days away from retirement. "Are you okay?"

"Oh yeah. Just peachy. How's your day going?"

She thinks he might chuckle, but he's too far away for her to be sure. "Interesting. We've called Stark Industries, they say they're sending someone down."

"Cool. I'll just try not to die before they get here then."

The cop's not one to overstay his welcome and soon it's just Darcy and Hulk again.

"So," Darcy says. "Is there a reason you decided to drag me all the way out here?"

She doesn't expect an answer - she got a whole lecture from Jane on the brain chemistry that makes up the Hulk's personality and she didn't understand much of it but she did get that he's not strong in the language centers - but she's certainly not expecting the answer she does get.

" **Short**."

Darcy blinks. It's been at least a decade since anyone teased her about her height and she really doesn't think tall, green, and angry should be bothering anyone about the way they look. "Uh huh," she says. "I'm shorter than most people but that doesn't explain why you-"

" **Too short**."

Darcy waits exactly one minute for the guy to elaborate before she speaks again. "Okay, so I'm too short. Too short for …"

Hulk only stares.

"The tower? Is it like a ride and you must be this tall-" she holds up her hand to just above her head- "to enter?"

Hulk continues to stare.

"Okay, not the tower. Too short for…" She tries to think what she was doing right before being abducted. "Chocolate for breakfast? Because I think it's a little too late for that but I'm sure if you feel that strongly about it you could do some PSAs."

Still no response.

"Oh, come on, big guy! You gotta give me something here! What am I too short for?"

" **Tony.** "

Darcy knows what this sort of statement would usually mean but it makes absolutely zero sense given the context so it's not until Hulk is right in front of her, poking her in the chest with his giant index finger, knocking her onto her butt in the dewy grass, and saying, " **Tony Pepper's** ," that it really sinks in.

"You think I slept with Tony Stark?" she asks.

When Iron Man shows up, Darcy is flat on her back, laughing her ass off. The Hulk has never looked so perplexed.

\---------------

Bruce takes a deep breath before knocking on the door.

"Come in!"

He lets the door swing open but doesn't step inside. "Uh, hi."

The woman, who he's been told is named Darcy Lewis, sits up swiftly on the bed and pulls her earbuds from her ears. Then she stares and waits. It's no more than Bruce deserves. According to Tony and the local news and Steve and JARVIS's footage and Pepper, he apparently kidnapped the poor woman in some weird attempt to save Tony and Pepper's relationship. He tried to indignantly point out that if they had a guest - especially a young, attractive one - someone should have told him, but under the circumstances his indignation came out as more of a weak defense. So now he's apologizing and trying to ignore the fact that Tony's probably watching this on the big screen.

"I um," Bruce begins. "Well, I- I uh-"

"You came to apologize," Darcy offers.

"Yes. That. See I- well-"

Darcy rolls her eyes and pushes off from the bed. "It's cool," she says.

It sounds so final that he can't help the "Really?" that pops out of his mouth.

She begins winding her headphone cord around her ipod and looks at him from the corner of her eye. "Yeah. Really. Coulson once stole my ipod _and_ six college credits from me. He gave them back and now we're cool."

"I stole _you_. Isn't that a bit more than an ipod and a few credits?"

She whirls and levels the ipod at him like an accusing finger. "Hey! This ipod is my baby. I love it like my own flesh and blood. And I spent a semester in the middle of nowhere listening to Jane go on and on about physics for those credits. I don't think I ever did more to earn college credits in my life!"

Bruce holds up his hands in surrender.

"And while we're on the subject," she goes on, "the fact that you accused me of _sleeping with Tony Stark_ is _way_ worse than kidnapping me while I was half-naked and starving."

"I'm sorry for that too," Bruce says quickly before she can say anymore. "The Other Guy likes Tony and Tony likes Pepper and sometimes, when the Other Guy and I agree on things, well, things tend to get hairy. I promise I'll never accuse you of sleeping with any other billionaires."

He meant the last as a joke, something to diffuse the tension and keep her from yelling again (the Other Guy really hates when people yell and he can't yell back), but she just looks puzzled.

"Who's 'the Other Guy'?"

"Oh, uh, the Hulk."

"…You call him 'the Other Guy'?"

Bruce isn't sure how to answer when he clearly just said that so he keeps quiet.

Darcy shrugs. "Better than naming a hammer Mew-mew, I guess."

"Yes, well, I'm sorry again and I hope wherever you go is less traumatic than this place has been."

"What do you mean 'wherever I go'? I'm still staying here."

"You are?" It took Tony six months to convince Natasha to move in after he almost killed her and she's a master assassin. How crazy is this woman?

He might have said that out loud because suddenly Darcy's saying, "I may not be a master assassin or whatever, but I do know Thor, and I saw the Destroyer wipe out a whole town, _and_ I have SHIELD clearance - sure, it's the lowest level you can possibly have but I _have it!_ I figure so long as your giant alter-ego understands that I'm not going to ruin the frankly adorable relationship between Pepper and Tony, I'm safe. And honestly, anything's preferable to listening to your roommate have sex with a thunder god."

Bruce is suddenly very happy he didn't have any breakfast because that mental image came out of nowhere. The look on his face might be why Darcy adds, "FYI: it's as loud as you'd expect."

"Good to know," Bruce says dully.

Darcy laughs. "I'm sure. Now come on."

Suddenly she's got him by the hand and is dragging him down the hall.

"Where are we going?" he asks.

"I haven't eaten breakfast yet so you're taking me to apology brunch."

He manages to find his footing and stop. Darcy turns back to him, her grip on his hand still firm.

"If you argue," she says before he can speak, "I'll tell you more about Thor's sex life."

Bruce considers how damaging that information might be to his already fragile psyche. "And if I don't?"

"I'll tell you the story of how I met Thor. It involves Thor getting hit by a car. Twice."

From the dark, green corner of Bruce's brain comes a chuckle. "Okay," Bruce says, "let's go."


End file.
